Spec prediction for 2026 Xbox consoles

Two sku again. One is a hybrid. The other is a console.

Hyprid specs.

  • Portable mode:
  • 8 core Zen 5 at ~3.5ghz
  • 32GB lpddr6 at ~9600mhz, 256bit bus. ~300GB/s.
  • 32mb of infinity cache + 22 CUs 32 ROPS at ~2000mhz, ~11teraflops
  • NPU
  • 40 watt hour battery. 2+ hour battery life.
  • 1440p 8 inch 120hz OLED screen. HDR. VRR.

Performance target. Series S quality mode with ray tracing enabled at double the framerate and 1440p via ML frame generation + upscaling.

Docked mode. Faster clocks on CPU, ram, and GPU. Both shader engines enabled:

  • 8 core Zen 5 at 5+ghz
  • 32GB lpddr6 at 12400mhz, 256bit bus. 416GB/s.
  • NPU
  • 32mb of infinity cache + 44 CUs 64 ROPS at ~2500mhz, ~28teraflops
  • 50+ watt TDP.

Performance target: Series X quality mode with ray tracing enabled at double the framerate and 4k via ML frame generation + upscaling.

n3p TMSC 1TB SSD.

$499

Console specs.

  • 8 core Zen 5 at 5+ghz
  • 32GB GDDR7, 256bit bus. ~1 TB/s bandwidth
  • 64mb of infinity cache + 132 CUs 196 ROPS at 2.7ghz. 90+ teraflops.
  • NPU
  • 2TB SSD
  • 300+ watt TDP

$899+

Performance target: Either doubles the framerate of the docked hybrid or increase the resolution to 8k or somewhere in between.

Swap out Zen cores for Arm Neoverse cores if Xbox decides on Arm cores.

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How powerful are these compared to say a Series S and is a $400-500 price realistic for it?

Becuase it sounds a lot for a handheld at those prices

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Holy shit, I don’t think anyone would buy a console at those prices. Bit of a insane price range.

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The Infinity Cache would be very desirable for the big performance boost but not sure it would fit in a handheld - it makes for some chunky CPUs although maybe the smaller process node will make it doable.

Specs look about right though, the GPU might be even better as RDNA4 will have matured by then or we might even hit RDNA5.

Chiplets might be in use on both the GPU and in a bigger way in the CPU too so might give some good performance boosts in a small package.

And yep they might go Arm but it’d need to be pretty powerful for the emulation layer to run Series X games well - another option might be them going Nvidia like Nintendo to take advantage of DLSS 4 as it’ll be by then…

Interesting to think about - I suspect it’d significantly outperform the PS5 Pro and hopefully get a good head start in sales before the PS6 released

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The hypothetical more powerful one is expensive but I think it’s the smart play

It lets them have 2 skus, one more mainstream friendly at 4-500 and then the mega powerful one for the hardcore, they aren’t going to want to take big losses for super powerful hardware going forward, same goes for Sony

It will be designed for the hardcore, they wouldn’t be expecting it to sell like the cheaper one, so if it doesn’t sell that great, no big deal but at least they wouldn’t be taking big losses on each one

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Portable mode is 1.5x. docked mode is 4x.

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32mb of esram on 3nm would be tiny. Like less than 10mm of die space.

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True the 3D AMD chips I’ve been looking at for a new PC are all current gen so nowhere near that process node

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Specifications aren’t bad at all but im hoping that Microsoft does a single SKU approach because if they go the two SKU route again, same issue as this generation. Games will have to run on it all and developers/publishers aren’t going to want to spend extra money, time and resources to fully develop and optimize every version.

Microsoft needs to bring out a great standard console at $500 (take the fucking loss) and let your software which I know it won’t be but fucking should be fully exclusive to the hardware and get people back into their consoles and software.

Doing the two SKU approach is just shooting themselves in the foot yet again.

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A baseline SKU that’s not bottlenecked and a high end SKU that runs the games uncapped isn’t the same approach as S vs X. The S was bottlenecked by lack of ram. 2 extra GBs would have solved all the complaints.

Also if your business is moving away from having exclusives, then you would need a lineup of highly differentiated hardware, since your differentiating factor is no longer your games library. A $500 PS-equivalent console will sell at best less than third of the PS in a post exclusive world.

A hybrid and a ultra high end console would be your differentiated lineup. Perhaps you take your hybrid SOCs and put it in a $299 console to get the impulse buyers or become the 2nd console to people’s PS / Switch main, but that can happen way after launch.

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I see, you went all in Andrew😁

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Developers would still have to optimize for all SKU’s as opposed to just doing it once and done. Would publishers want to pay the money, time and resources this would take for what is basically the 3rd best console platform for developers/publishers? 4th if you want to include PC. They don’t want to spend the money and whatnot now so why would they do it next generation when Xbox brand could be in a far worse state than it is right now for those developers and publishers?

The entire idea of having different hardware but moving away from exclusives makes absolutely no sense because why are people going to buy any of the different hardware if they can play all those non-exclusives on other platforms?

Which in turn would save them money from having to buy Xbox hardware which when you think about it, they would just put that saved money towards the console/platform that they’re actually buying.

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Xbox is the second platform for third party AAA publishers, Nintendo is first if you only see exclusives. You dont see EA, T2, Ubisoft big AAA games in Nintendo platforms, so for that publishers Xbox is second. And dont forget that Xbox own 2 publishers for now.

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And no matter how successful the switch 2 ends up being, that isn’t likely to change. It is going to quickly end up in the same place hardware wise that the current switch is in.

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Microsoft owning two publishers means nothing because they’re no longer independent. They’re owned and operated by Microsoft so they obviously will support Xbox hardware.

Since this topic is about next generation Xbox hardware that means the Switch 2 will be out by then so while they probably won’t get a GTA 6, I can see them getting “lesser” versions of Ubisoft/EA, etc. games.

We’re hearing talk about handhelds from both Xbox and Playstation and you can be sure that, if they exist, they are meant to be compatible with the primary console and not a completely separate device.

The idea of having a single device is already done with in that regard IMO.

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We know that type of games dont sell well in Nintendo platforms because are the worst version with difference, they dont make the charts. MS owning two publishers give they the power to have many output of games that take the adventaje of the hardware, and the other pubs will only want to look better so they will make.

I think things change with third party publishers in regards to Switch 2. I believe they will make it work because they see money on Switch 2 and they all passed on Switch which im pretty sure they all regret. Game port doesn’t need to be equal to Xbox/PlayStation, just solid enough to be fully playable and enjoyed.

As for the two publishers, in my eyes, it’s more like one publisher and two extra studios. The publisher being Bethesda and the two studios being all of the Activision side since all I see them doing is continuing to work on Call of Duty while the Blizzard side will just work on Diablo/Warcraft/Overwatch.

Does Activision/Blizzard have any rumored games in development that isn’t COD or the three I mentioned with Blizzard?

Regards to Switch 2 I dont think, they are near Xbox One S than XSX and with PS5 pro Sony will move the third partys support to actual gen. There are a rumor about Infinity Ward Poland RPG

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I am completely in favor of a hybrid-console. I think this is the way to go more than ever. Xbox wants an ecosystem, and a hybrid-console fits perfectly in there. After all, we all know XCloud is really bad outside.

Just imagine PC, HYBRID-CONSOLE and XCloud. They cover all kinds of necessities and devices in this way. And all this with PLAY ANYWHERE.